Factory gate ‘vultures’ feast on British Steel pensions

Hargreaves Lansdown said it was “extraordinary” that members of the British Steel pPnsion Scheme “could be let down so badly”LINDSEY PARNABY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

More than 50,000 British workers may be being cheated out of part of their pension each year, according to a scathing report by MPs who warned of another “major mis-selling scandal”.

The work and pensions select committee accused regulators of “fiddling while Rome burns” after its investigation found that unscrupulous financial advisers, sometimes employing “vulture” intermediaries at factory gates, had persuaded steelworkers to transfer their final salary pension pots.

In some cases savers were “shamelessly bamboozled” into putting their savings into risky funds with hefty annual adviser fees of 2 per cent and punitive exit penalties of up to 10 per cent.

The committee warned that this practice could be being carried out across the country as the pension freedoms introduced by George Osborne in…